An art that sympathizes with man and criticizes contemporary life

The motif of the male figure stands out in the retrospective exhibition on Yiannis Gaitis

By Alexandra Koroxenidis - Kathimerini English Edition

The «swinging 60s» ushered in an era of affluence and democratization, but it was also characterized as a time of political protest, restlessness and an urge for change, with a vocal youth culture that was critical of society. The era celebrated the open world of pop culture yet was critical of the compromises that this world entailed.

This seeming contradiction also applied to the art of the time. Indeed, seen from a certain point of view, much of the art of the 1960s was part of the very reality that it stood critically against.

This duality can also be said to characterize the art of Yiannis Gaitis. It is a thought that the retrospective exhibition of the artist's work, which opened a few days ago at the Pireos annex of the Benaki Museum, triggers in the viewer.

Curated by the late artist's daughter Loretta Gaiti-Charrat, the exhibition includes 200 works and covers Gaitis's entire oeuvre from 1944 to his death in 1984. It begins with the early works - a stylistic blend of cubist and surrealist influence - that Gaitis made in the 40s and 50s. In 1954 Gaitis, together with his wife, the artist Gabriella Simosi, moved to Paris and lived there for the ensuing 20 years.

Visually, the exhibition can be said to be divided into two parts. The early works that make up the first part are the lesser-known side of Gaitis's art. His most recognizable works are those that depict the suit-clad, male figure with the bowler hat, one which the artist intended as a symbol of man's predicament in a world of mass production and standardization.

This motif is in paintings of the late 60s and prevails in the works of the artist throughout his remaining career. Except for a few early examples, the exhibition is filled with works on that same theme. The repetition borders on fixation. Gaitis criticizes standardization, the anonymity of urban life and the constrictions that modern life places on individuality. It is perhaps an irony that by repeating himself, Gaitis too can be said to partake in the phenomenon of standardization he is so critical of.

Yet his art is both inventive and visually pleasing. In many works, the male figure is multiplied by hundreds. Like the parts of a machine, it is turned into a carefully placed unit in a dense yet orderly crowd. Each one becomes part of a bigger picture, a larger motif that resembles an abstract shape.

In other works, Gaitis depicts the male figure as a freestanding sculpture, either as part of an installation or as the extension of a painting into three dimensions.

Besides the more critical side to the art of Gaitis there is also much playfulness, particularly in the surrealist-like furniture that, again, is designed after the motif of the male figure.

A table and chairs, sofa or mirror - all designed in multiple editions - are among the works that show Gaitis's support for a democratic, popular art. Gaitis made the average man both the protagonist and the recipient of his art. He was critical of the reality that we all live in, yet his art tended to accept the very same reality that it blamed for the predicaments of modern existence.

Yiannis Gaitis retrospective at the Benaki Museum's Pireos annex (138 Pireos, tel 210.345.3111-3) through June 4. There is no catalog for the exhibition. A catalogue raisonne, which was published several years ago, is an exhaustive study on the artist's work and is available at the museum's art shop.

The exhibition on Gaitis includes a video that shows the artist's home on the island of Ios. Gaitis discovered Ios together with his close friend Jean-Marie Drot, the French author and filmmaker of documentaries on culture for French television. Gaitis designed Drot's home on Ios (now a museum of modern art and other artifacts that Drot gathered around the world) and later built his own house on the island.

For the past nine years, the artist's daughter Loretta Gaiti-Charrat has been working toward turning her father's house on the island into a museum. Mayor of Ios Giorgos Poussaios has also collaborated on the project, which will probably be completed at the end of 2007. The museum will include works by Gaitis and his wife Gabriella Simosi, but will also welcome donations of works by other Greek artists who were friends of Gaitis.

The museum is intended as a spot in a cultural itinerary that includes an archaeological museum, a museum of folk art, the Odysseus Elytis theater and the museum of Jean-Marie Drot.